Tuesday, March 5, 2013

FamilySearch Family Tree Open for Everyone

Larry Cragun, on his Larry Cragun Family and Genealogy blog, just posted Family Tree - It's now Live to All! this morning.

I checked the FamilySearch home page (https://www.familysearch.org) without signing in, and sure enough, there is the "Family Tree" link in the top menu.


clicking on the "Family Tree" link brought me to the Sign-in page.  I have had a FamilySearch ID for awhile, so I filled in the fields and clicked on "Sign In."


Because I have added myself, and many family members to Family Tree already, the Tree opens to my entry in the pedigree chart:


If you need help getting started, please see these resources:

*  Using the FamilySearch Family Tree: A Reference Guide (4 March 2013)

*  Family Tree Curriculum (Elder Moon's website)

*  Tuesday's Tip - FamilySearch Family Tree Learning Tools (16 October 2012) - some links may be outdated

*  My own experiences are in my FamilySearch Family Tree blog label.

The FamilySearch Family Tree is a Connected Tree - not a set of millions of separate trees (like Ancestry Member Trees or WorldConnect).  It is completely open for any registered user to add, edit or delete content.  Hopefully, users will not abuse this freedom.

Users can add content directly into the tree by adding persons, vital records, sources, notes, discussions, etc.  Photos can be added at this time by LDS Church members but not non-church members (this may change soon!).

Users can also add content to the Family Tree using FamilySearch certified genealogy software (e.g., RootsMagic, Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree, and others).  That is how I've added some of my families, but we were told recently to hold off adding any more content because it was hindering the conversion of New.FamilySearch to FamilySearch Family Tree.  I don't know if this is still the case or not.

There are significant problems with some persons in this FamilySearch Family Tree.  There are many individuals with hundreds of separate entities in the Tree, most of them seem to be LDS Church founders and their ancestors.  As you go back further in time (e.g., before 1800 or so), you will see that there are many duplicate entries that need to be merged responsibly.

If you don't want to add your own family tree information to the FamilySearch Family Tree, you can still Search the tree.  There is a "Search" link on all of the Family Tree pages - it's between "Photos" and "Watch List on the screen above.  When you click on the link, you see a search box:


I filled in my Isaac Seaver information, and the search results showed:


It found my entry for my Isaac Seaver (with duplicates already merged, facts corrected, sources added, etc.), plus three others with birth dates within five years of my Isaac Seaver.  If I had added  parents names, or a spouse's name, the list would have been shorter.

On the screen above, there are buttons at the top of the screen for "New" "Refine" "First Name" "Last Name" "Gender" "Birth" and any other entry field filled in on the search forms.  If you click on one of those buttons, you can edit the search fields.

It is possible that access to the FamilySearch Family Tree, and perhaps the whole FamilySearch system, will be slow in the next few weeks as more users register and start using the FamilySearch Family Tree.  Larry said they expect two million new users.  So if it's slow, be patient and try later.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/03/familysearch-family-tree-open-for.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

4 comments:

Geolover said...

Randy, glad you posted some helpful resources for those who would try out the Family Search Family Tree. There's one more that could be useful, a message board monitored by some experienced users, as well as by design, engineering and managerial staff who would like to be aware of any bugs or unusual glitches:

https://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch/topics

The "Forums" well hidden within the FamilySearch.org site are history as of end of December, 2012.

Ashleigh said...

This is great information to know for future and current researchers! Thanks

Larry K Cragun said...

Randy, There is a site for comments and feedback that is excellent: https://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch/products/familysearch_photos_and_stories

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